Opinion

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Quotes

How big is your crew?
-Five. One is off sick. Actually, two.
Of course. If there's work to do, suddenly there's an epidemic.
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The architects are sleeping.
- What time do people in Turin wake up?
It depends, I wake up at six o'clock.
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You wrote telling me it was going to be installed last Monday.
- You're the lady from Rome?
Yes, exactly. This is as far as you've gotten? I don't believe it.
- Just a moment. We're right on schedule.
Whose schedule? Let's be serious. You realize everything must be ready by Saturday the 25th?
-I'm just follow orders.
Of course you do.
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You put it on your face, then wipe it with a very hot flannel then immediately an icy one. It relaxes your complexion.
-That's what I need. Some mornings I wake up and my face looks frightening! If I go to bed too late, my face feels puffy. Life can be humiliating!
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Look at the sea, it's so dirty. At least the sea ages too. How ugly.
-Tomorrow, with sun, it'll be beautiful again.
But we won't be!

You've taken us for a ride.
-From you I'll accept such insults.
This is the 22nd. Any child could see the work won't be done by the 25th!
-You mean you have children?
Compliments don't work with me. I don't have children, but I could have. I can tell you don't.
-How so?
Raising children takes a sense of responsibility.
-Ah ... haha.
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Have you never seen a theatre rehearsal? They normally think, "I wonder how it will be on stage." But miracles happen, they always do. At least in Italy. We specialise in miracles.
-I prefer relying on my strengths. That's what I'm used to.
I can see that, I'm trying to adapt to it. Actually, I've already adapted. Do you know we haven't gone to eat yet today?
-If your intention is to carry on like this, I'll have to write my will ...if I have any strength left!
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Toni and I will be together a lifetime. If I leave him just one day I shan't die! I'll go back to him more in love than before. What can I do? That's the way I am!

Why, is she poor?
- No, she comes from a good family. But she's been in a lot of trouble. She tried to kill herself.
She's got too much money then!
-It's never crossed my mind.
She's not suitable. Whoever doesn't have the need to work... and does it for a past time... doesn't appear very serious to me.
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Why did you run off?
-I didn't. I didn't think you'd come to a place like this.
They have lots of good things here. They even have supplì! (some kind of croquettes.)
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He's just jealous of your success, that's what's wrong with him.
-That's also what worries me. He'll end up hating me, do you understand?
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He needs a woman to love him and even to brush his teeth!
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What was going on between you two?
-I just made a portrait, that's what went on! And her parents haven't paid me yet!
Maybe Rosetta thought it was a gift.
-A gift? What for exactly? I don't even know her!

She provoked me. I have my dignity to defend, I'm a man.
-Your kisses were meant for me. I, too, have my dignity to defend.
You're right, I can explain. Wait!
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Patience has its limits! We do everything so that this idiot doesn't see how ridiculous
her situation is. Because somebody who can't even kill herself is pretty ridiculous!
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I'm not putting up with your superiority! You act like you're a genius among idiots!
-It might be true.
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If she wants to throw herself in that sea, it means there's no hope.
-I would only kill myself in a warm season. I don't want to be buried in the cold.
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If a man kisses you in public it means he doesn't have any feelings. Don't you think?
- I wouldn't know.
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I don't know why I did it. I thought about it a lot. "One day I'll put an end to this." Then my parents and my friends started asking, "Why? Why? Why?" And I no longer knew
the reason for it anymore. Because everybody is just the way they are. You've seen them. My friends, my life... my days. My days... Why should I live? To decide what dress to wear? And when I've decided? What's waiting for me? You feel sorry for me, don't you?
-Yes. I don't know what to say when I hear life being reduced to a dress. Life is made up of many things, good and bad. But there are many things, and all important. There are emotions. There's love. Why don't you get married?
Who to?
-To whomever one's in love with?
I don't believe in it.
-Maybe because you don't want to believe it. You need to want it all. I'm a bit like yourself when it comes to this. But at least I've created other interests.

It's normal for people to have different tastes. I admire you anyway. Even if we don't like the same furniture.
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I'd like to tell you something. Something about us. You see, I'm a lonely woman. And sometimes, especially... during moments of depression that can happen, I need affection and somebody to lean on.
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It's the middle of winter and everybody is acting like it's spring. This house is ruled by love!
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I know what it's like to love a man and watch him marry somebody else.
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If I were somebody like you, who saw things the way you see them, who was interested in things as you are, and maybe had your problems... Do you want them?
-I'll give them to you now!
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You haven't told me the truth, Rosetta.
-I'm convinced that a man lies at the bottom of all this.
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Why do you think I'm offering you a job with me? So you can learn to look outside your bubble. Very few people are happy with just themselves. We can't live without other people. Kidding ourselves is useless.

Nene, I didn't know you had homemaking skills.
-Really? What traits do you have?
Me? Ask the men.
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He wanted to know where you were.
- That's the trouble! Do you know what he did today? He sent me keys to a new flat in Turin. He knows that if he wants me back, he needs to live in the city. I hate the countryside.
-Are you getting back together?
I don't know, we'll see. It used to be so nice here. The atmosphere's funny in a flat where a woman lives alone. You feel like you're doing something you shouldn't be doing.
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Why should she work?
- To keep herself busy.
It's too inconvenient. Momina, you make me angry sometimes.
-You never take certain things seriously.
It would be different if you had to earn your own bread.
-I've got bread. What can I do? I've got it!

I'll tell her to give my salary to somebody who needs it, and knows what they're doing. And when you're in love... you don't have time for anything else.
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You really should do something, a proper job to keep you busy.
-I would like being your wife.
You women don't think about anything else. Marriage, marriage! What about afterwards? Do you think you'd be happy?
- But I love you.
I know, but it's not enough.
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Sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm very tired.
-We're all tired, that's no excuse. You should always pretend.
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Sometimes I wonder if women understand what being a man really is.
-Don't say that, I...
You what? You lack internal life, that's the truth.
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Don't worry about Nene, I doubt she's deluding herself.
-If she is, then she's stupid as well as a wretch! Because a woman who's worth
more than her man is a wretch.
That's not true.
- You know it is.

You won't go, will you? You won't leave me?
-You know I won't. I'd only have gone if you'd left me.
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But why do you still love me?
-Perhaps because you come at such a high price.
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Listen to me, have fun while you're still young. Otherwise when you're old, you'll have many regrets. And there's nothing worse.
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You play with other people's feelings as though everybody was like you. You don't even know what feelings are. If a lover leaves you, you just go out and find another one!
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Have you never seen a man with clothes on?
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If we'd had children I wouldn't have given up. I would have stayed. But two lonely people, whether they're married or not, can't stay together for love. For love... I'm leaving.
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Be prepared. Don't think you're the only thing in his life. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you've been able to get what I never had from him.

I was sure I'd lost my job. I felt relieved. I felt saved from having to spend my life with people who never forgive you for making any mistakes. People that talk without
understanding each other. Instead of missing my job, I thought of you.
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Over the years we've spent most days together and yet we don't know anything
about one another. We only know how we work. They say that I've been lucky in life,
maybe it's true. I've been through difficult times too. I've had to make decisions. Now I like what I do, I don't need anything else. I never have time to stop and think, "Am I happy or sad?" And that's very lucky. I don't know if choosing this path in my life has been the right thing. But I know that sticking up for my choices was.

Comment

An Italian neorealism movie made in 1955 by Michelangelo Anotonioni. Good photography. I liked it & was entertained. This movie is not for the crowd who expects a Hollywood production every time. Neorealism is very stark & often without the usual background music. It is about a British couple & the husband inherits a villa in Italy. They villa is out in the country near Naples with beautiful views of Mount Vesuvious, the Isle of Capri & a large body of water. The couple have marital problems. She is a culture vulture type & enjoys museums, etc. He is a party boy. The don't explore his extra maritial daliances enough. In the end they make up.

An impressive B&W classic featuring a bunch of fashionable women and their relationships in the good part of Turin in the 1950s (great migration of Southern Italians to work in the humongous Fiat auto plant.) At the center was a depressed woman desperately seeking love under the watchful eyes of her upper class circle of amiche, friends, who were looking for self-fulfillment as women of means. Super thoughtful and witty script. Best quote (fuller context in "quotes"):
Lorenzo: But why do you still love me?
Nene: Perhaps because you come at such a high price.

Also with the DVD was a pull out with extensive comments on the film. See the excellent write-up "Le amiche: Friends—Italian Style" by Tony Pipolo in "Summary."

Notes: The croquettes in the film was spoken as Supplì which is a Sicily's arancini, a kind of croquette. And a screen adaption of Cesare Pavese's short story "Tra Donne Sole -- Among Women Only."